Making games for a chance to shape the future of a better world

running circle

Note: As of now, Running Circles is #1 in Top New Games in Google Play in UK, Germany, etc and top 5 in most other countries. It’s a game by Boombit, and you can play it here:

Rank History of “Running Circles” in Google Play by country, data from AppAnnie

We’ve seen games like this before: since the beginning of the Flappy Bird era, a lot of new developers started to build small, original, casual games. Some were more successful than others. The question is: what makes a game reach #1 while others only manage to get to Top 10 or Top 25?

Now let’s break down all the elements of a game to see which are the ones that contribute mostly to the success.

Is it the graphics? Well, it could be a contributing factor, but it’s definitely not the major one. Yes, some games that reach #1 do have some original graphics or a new style: think about Crossy Road: we’ve never seen blocky characters done in that way before. Well, you might say that Minecraft has some similarities, but characters in Crossy Road definitely are different: there is a dominant color in each character, plus it makes use of half and quarter size blocks.